


Fluorescent

by TheSoulOfAStrawberry



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Gothic, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 07:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10692537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoulOfAStrawberry/pseuds/TheSoulOfAStrawberry
Summary: A gas station worker considers the boy who doesn't set off the automatic doors.SoaD tribute fic!





	Fluorescent

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shadow of a Doubt](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/306243) by HaiJu. 



> as mentioned in the summary, this is a "shadow of a doubt" tribute fic! you don't have to have read PoT/SoaD but tbh you should, it's both fan and literary perfection. non-essential essential reading. if you have read it, then i guess it's set when danny hitches a ride out of amity park towards the start. 
> 
> also, idk haiju but if ur reading this, ily!! 
> 
> i have an idea that would make this into a two-shot, maybe. let me know if you like it and i guess i might continue it?? ;)
> 
> TW- allusions to child abuse, injury, police brutality.

She’d seen many like him before.

And yet, maybe that wasn’t true. There was something a little off. Maybe it was a trick of the light; harsh fluorescent lighting, the drone of which she’d long gotten used to, making him seem slightly transparent, form shimmering as he drifted down the second aisle. Orange hoodie aside, it seemed the universe wanted him to go unnoticed, a background character wherever he went. And yet, that was what made him so interesting.

Roy noticed it too. Of course he did: she barely even needed to look at him to know he was making that face: a wry smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. He watched too many of those shows about the supernatural, paid attention to the local news reports of ghost attacks upstate, took them too seriously. Sometimes it annoyed her, the way he rambled on to her, talking down a little, but mostly she could see where the interest stemmed from. Not only was a gas station in the middle of nowhere boring as anything, but the strangest characters seemed to pass through.

Shunaid didn’t believe in ghosts. It was easy to ignore the news reports; it wasn’t as if half of what they aired wasn’t a lie anyway, or at least twisted in some way. She more than anyone should know that, after what they tried to say about her Ben when he was barely 16.

Come to think of it, this kid couldn’t have been much older than her Ben. 17, max. Not old enough to be here by himself, and yet there he was, as if against all odds, staring somewhat blankly at the shelves of candy bars. How did he even get here? There was no one at the pumps outside, and she was pretty sure she’d coned off the back lot at the end of her shift the night before. Unless someone had moved them, and there was a car round there, he must have walked at least 3 hours from the nearest town on a highway barely appropriate for bikes, let alone a teenager out of his depth.

They wouldn’t chase a white boy for the things they’d chased her Ben for, but all her resentment didn’t stop her concern for the teen. She wouldn’t want to see another family put through what they’d been through. What of his parents? Something told her he hadn’t left optionally. She’d seen that, she knew how to recognise a naïve runaway for their overstuffed backpack, devil-may-care attitude as they waved their credit card in her face, as if a gas station in rural Illinois required such bravado to buy cigarettes. 

He slouched away down the aisle, and she caught Roy’s eye as she moved from behind the register to crouch over the end of the counter, pretending to fiddle with the lid of the jar of jerky as her eyes followed him into the next aisle. He seemed at home in his independence, and as much as the thought scared her, she was glad. She was a shop employee, barely able to make ends meet herself; there was never anything she could do for the lost souls who wandered the back of the store in search of nothing in particular. 

Picking up a packet of something, the boy wandered nearer to her, and she was glad of a closer look. That hoodie of his seemed to hide a slight frame, and his face was unnaturally bony and gaunt, to the extent she worried if he might be ill. Maybe that was what made her think his existence was a little off, the boniness and harrowing neglect not so often seen in America, at least not in daylight. Less a literal ghost, since he sure seemed quite real right in that moment, and more just a haunting of her conscience. A sort of reminder of her own fears, as if incredulity of the horror of abusive parents made her search for a different answer, one that was easier to swallow.

She stopped herself mid-thought, and wanted to chuckle. Roy may have his ghosts news reports, but she had her psychology evening classes. 

Perhaps that was why they got on so well.

She turned her attention back to the boy, and it was then she noticed the right sleeve, and the way it was pulled much further down than the other one, over his thumb and most of his hand. Not far enough though, that she didn’t see the end of a bandage when he reached for something else, before he flinched and picked it up with the other hand.

He kept hand close as he walked up to the counter, placing the items down in front of her without comment. She tried to catch his eye for a soft smile, but Roy had other ideas.

“No need to look so frightened, kid. She won’t bite.”

She hadn’t thought he’d looked frightened, but he sure as hell did now. He looked over at Roy, who’d taken his seat in the corner by the counter, where he looked more like a local eccentric than a shop employee (though she reckoned he had a better shot at the former, with the amount he helped out). When the boy looked back at her, eyes widened, she tried for that smile, but it had lost something. It wasn’t a genuine gesture anymore, it was a lacklustre reassurance, a defence of her own friendliness. 

“A joke, a joke,” Roy had obviously noticed his sudden nervousness as he backpedalled, though he still wore that wonky grin. “What brings you round these parts?”

“Just passing through,” he mumbled, pulling the sleeve further over his hand and tucking it into himself. Much as he was trying his best to be inconspicuous, no one, not least a mother like Shunaid, could ignore an action like that.

She was beginning to think he was younger than her Ben.

“We never get that, out here,” Roy persisted, and when he got no reaction, “So many people admire the charms of route 64 and the surrounding gas stations, you can’t move for all the tourists.” 

The boy gave a weak smile.

“What’s your name then son?”

He seemed to think for a moment, as if wondering whether to tell the truth, before catching Shunaid’s eye.

“Danny,” he said simply. 

“Nice to meet’cha, Danny. I’m Roy and this fine young lady is Shunaid.” Her lips curved into a crass smile as he gestured in her direction, and apparently, the camaraderie the two didn’t go unnoticed as she noticed Danny visibly relax the tension in his shoulders. 

“So where y’headed young Danny? You not got a lot of bags for someone just passing on through.”

Shunaid had noticed that but it hadn’t really registered. He didn’t have any bags, just a slim wallet tucked into the pocket of his hoodie.

“Nowhere in particular.”

“Runaway?”

Danny tried not to look guilty and failed miserably, looking down at the stains on the counter.

“Oh cmon, we’re all friends here. We’ve got better business than to be grassing up a kid like you. So?”

There was a pause, in which a fridge near the window clicked and started humming loudly.

“Something like that.”

So she was right, Shunaid thought, although that clearly wasn’t all there was to it. She noticed him shimmering again, and he gasped slightly, as if he’d lost his breath, and he put a hand on the counter to steady himself. Roy was probably making his face again, so part of Shunaid was glad the boy seemed too distracted to notice.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” the kid said breathlessly, though he didn’t sound it. 

There was a rumble outside, and they all turned to see a truck pulling into one of the pumps. Dusk lined it in charcoal as the load cast a shadow across the station front- not that it affected inside, as that was perpetually lit in unnatural white light. The tension returned to boy in front of her, and his hair fell in front of his eyes.

“People care a lot less than you think they do out here,” she observed quietly, not intending Roy to hear. 

“You reckon?” he asked darkly. Shunaid was again struck by how she could not come to a conclusion on his age: the way he held himself, the unassuming presentation, the build that told her he’d had a hard time of life all told her he was in his late teens, maybe older. Yet, there was something about the way his blue-grey eyes gleamed, a sort of quiet inquisitiveness and intellect, and the way she could so easily see her Ben in him, if his cheeks filled out a little, that made him seem so young. That, and the slight petulance in his voice when he tried to be vague. 

What parents could reject a boy who was such a laughably bad liar?

“I do, yeah. You can’t talk if there’s no one to talk to,” she winked.

“You’ve got him,” he gestured in the direction of Roy, and Shunaid was pleased to elicit a chuckle in the boy when she rolled her eyes at that.

“Oi, I’m right here,” Roy protested, but Shunaid just smiled and finished ringing up his items. As he rooted in his pockets for change, Shunaid pretended to fiddle with the handles of the bag, whilst surreptitiously slipping in a few of whatever snacks she could reach from the counter. 

If Roy saw, he stayed quiet.

He handed her a crumpled five and a pile of change and pretended to look in the other direction as she counted, rubbing the back of his neck. She wondered why, half considering if she cared enough to break out the anti-counterfeit pen when she was brought to her senses with a small “ding” as the automatic doors slid open to reveal the trucker squinting his way into the store.

Of course, she thought.

She handed him his change and pushed the bag towards him. They’d both forgotten about his hand, and she saw the bandages just moments before he hissed in pain and dropped the bag on the floor. She wanted to apologise, she wanted to help, she wanted him to talk to her, but he was paying too much attention to the trucker who, in return, barely gave him a second glance. But it was too late. He was gone before she realised what was happening.

It was only later, in retrospect, that she’d realised she hadn’t heard the door “ding” open as he left.


End file.
